China's Missile Games

To be read in continuation of my earlier article titled TheChina-Pak Nexus where I had pointed out as follows:

"China considers that it is in its national security interest to help Pakistan maintain a nuclearweapon and missile delivery capability against India.  For nearly two decades now, it has, therefore,been clandestinely providing to Pakistan nuclear and missile material, expertise and technology in violationof international control regimes, such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).  It is not amember of the MTCR, but has repeatedly pledged that it adheres to its provisions.  Whenever itsclandestine supplies to Pakistan are detected by US intelligence agencies, it first denies any such shipments,then claims that any shipments were not in violation of control regimes, then blames non-Government entities(as if there are non-Government entities in such sensitive fields in China) for making the shipments withoutthe Government's knowledge, proposes experts' level talks with the US to remove misunderstandings, makesanother pledge to observe the control regimes and violates it once again.  This has been going on and on. It has been estimated that since the 1980s, China has made 15 such pledges and subsequently violated each andevery one of them.  The same has been the fate of the pledge made by it to the US on November 21,2000."

The present Bush Administration came to office with a pledge to take strong action against China if itcontinued to violate its pledges.  During his visit to Beijing in the last week of July, 2001, Gen (retd).Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, took up with the Chinese leaders the continuing shipments of Chinesemissiles and components to Pakistan in violation of the November 21, 2000, pledge.  The Chinese onceagain denied any such violation and proposed another round of experts' talks to go into this.  Instead ofimposing sanctions against Beijing, Gen Powell  agreed to the Chinese proposal.

The experts level talks between the two countries continued after Powell's visit. However, since Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator, agreed to help the US in its war against terrorism inAfghanistan last year a subtle change became evident in the attitude of the Bush administration towards thissubject. While the US intelligence officials during their periodic briefings of relevant Congressionalcommittees continued to draw attention to China's unterminated missile technology supply relationship withPakistan, neither the Administration nor the Congress highlighted their concerns over this in the samevigorous and continuous manner as they used to do before September 7, 2001.

Before September 7, 2001, US intelligence officials, whenever they were dissatisfied with the non-action ofthe Administration against China, used to leak instances of violation by China to the media in order to bringpressure on the Administration to act. Instances of such leakages became few and far between as the CIAitself, in its anxiety for co-operation from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in its hunt forOsama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda, did not apparently want to create unnecessary embarrassment for Pakistan'smilitary dictator.

After India mobilised its troops following  the attack on its Parliament House by Pakistan-basedterrorists on December 13, 2001, China organised an emergency movement of military equipment by sea and byroad through the Karakoram Highway. The equipment included not only new planes for the Pakistan Air Force, butalso a new consignment of missiles and missile components. It was from this consignment that Musharraf carriedout his missile-rattling tests of May,2002, in an attempt to intimidate India. One can be certain that the USintelligence agencies, which had in the past never failed to detect such Chinese movements, particularly ofnuclear and missile related equipment, would not have missed them. Despite this, there were no indications ofWashington DC having taken up the matter as vigorously with Beijing as it used to do before September 7,2001.The anxiety to keep Musharraf in good humour seems to have overtaken past concerns over the Chinese habit ofviolating its pledges when it came to Pakistan.

Unfortunately in India too, this matter has not received the attention it deserves.  In our anxiety tosecure US support against Pakistan on the cross-border terrorism issue, which has been forthcoming only in ahalf-hearted manner, New Delhi has failed to project in an appropriate manner its concerns over Beijing'sactions in clandestinely strengthening Pakistan's power of intimidation against India and the US silence onthis issue.

As a result of the dialogue between US and Chinese experts since last year's visit of Gen. Colin Powell,Secretary of State, to Beijing in July,2001, China has issued on August 25,2002, a day before the visit ofRichard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State, a formal set of regulations on the export control of missilesand missile-related items and technologies.  These have come into force from the date of promulgation.The US has welcomed it as a good step, which needs further follow-up. The text of the regulations are inAnnexure I and the text of the comments of the US State Department spokesman on the regulations during hisdaily press briefings are in Annexure II.

The problem with China has been  that it has always contended that its pledges would not haveretrospective effect and would not affect supplies under old agreements concluded before its pledge ofNovember21, 2000. So long as it does not give retrospective effect to its pledges and regulations, it couldand would continue to exclude supplies to Pakistan under the pretext that these were under a pre-November,2000, contract.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt, of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)